Alright so it has been a minute and I’ve been playing with the phone for about 2 and a half weeks. Here’s how it goes. The T-Mobile G1 is a great phone… but there is a lot of room for improvement. To all of the iPhone early adopters you will understand what I am saying when I say there is a lot on the phone that will be fixed/changed/added. I will say that for an iPhone alternative this phone is a top contender. Coming from being a Sidekick fanatic I will say that this phone is pretty much a Sidekick on steroids. Everything missing from all of the Sidekicks is present in this phone. From GPS to maps to threaded text messages, it’s all here. So lets break it down and cover some of the most important features.
The Home Screen
I really like the home screen. I think it is a mile ahead of the iPhone. It is customizable and has three areas to stick icons all over. There are also widgets which are currently lacking but from what I have heard will begin to pick up. Right now you can have a clock, a picture frame, and a search box. The search box is VERY useful. I can’t tell you how often I use it to ask Google a question. There are also folders so you can keep things nice and clean. I keep most of my apps (Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook) off the desktop and in a folder named tools. I also love the top notification bar. No need to clutter the screen with alerts. Everything is handled in a sliding pane that lets you know when you have a message, email, or a million other things. Great thinking on the part of the Android dev team.
The Keyboard 
As many of you know I have been a longtime Sidekick user so this keyboard is right up my ally. It is spaced out nicely and laid out just as nice. I didn’t like the feel when I first got it, however I got used to it. The problem with typing on this phone is that keys themselves are pretty much flat which gives little back as far as “feel”. Still miles ahead of touch screen key-press but it could have been better. The most annoying part is the big “chin” on the bottom/right of the phone. When you have it sideways and you are typing… it feels off balance. You feel like your left hand is hanging off. I hate it. I get by but HTC could have done a little better with this.
Threaded Text Messages
This was a feature I loved when I had my Treo 650. I send a lot of text messages, be it twitter or friends or whatever, I text a lot. The Sidekick had a 100 text message limit which sucked a lot of ass. This threaded setup is much more conversation oriented. I wish they had a few more options like coloring, ability to compress conversations into a log file for emailing, and copying. I don’t think you can forward any texts either. Maybe in an update they can fix this.
Cons 
Alright so all the good and no bad? Well not really. The phone is a battery whore. I mean it. If you have 3G going all day then forget about it, you better carry a charger. Not only that, even if you are on an Edge network… if you have GPS running, forget about it! I don’t use either of these things but I know some Blackberry users love these things, this phone might not be for you if you want to use 3G and GPS often. I keep my screen brightness turned way down (which it still looks fine) and I shut off some of the Google syncing as there isn’t much of a need to always sync my contacts and calendar. The apps are lacking, but in all fairness the phone is very new. I hope to see some REAL development. I don’t need to have an option for 30 tip calculators.
I don’t like the way the phone handles MMS messages. You can’t save the image, you can only view it… and view it at quite a small resolution. The phone plays it like a small movie, makes no sense. I also wish they added an on-screen keyboard like the iPhone. It gets tedious to open and close the phone to type something as small as “ok” or “hey”. I do hope they add this in the future. Also the camera is trash, not so much a quality problem but taking a picture takes so long, and there is no flash. Also, what the hell is up with the missing settings? No resolution settings? No settings for anything! What the f#$%.
And the most hated phone feature… Instant Messaging.
Forget about using AIM on this phone. I was such a big fan of the Sidekick for this very reason. I love AIM, sure I have threaded texts now but come on! AIM on this phone is total garbage. You don’t stay signed on, the user interface is crap. It’s like they didn’t even think. Sure you say there are 3rd party apps to fix this… not really. Meebo is the current answer but it has some distance to cover before it even contends with Sidekick AIM. GTalk is somewhat OK which makes sense as this is a Google product, but honestly how many people use GTalk like they use AIM. Maybe in other circles but not in mine. They seriously dropped the ball on this one. They could have shined and they give us a glorified version of text message AIM.
Conclusion 
I like the phone, I really do. I use it everyday but they need to get cracking on making the phone shine. This isn’t the iPhone killer… at least not yet. The operating system has GREAT potential but the handheld itself needs work. I am anxious to see what the G2 will look like. They need to fix the form factor and then they need to fix AIM. This phone could be a knockout, it could be a contender but as it stands it’s still in training for the battle. I believe in a year or maybe sooner we will see great improvements and great additions for the apps. Until then you might want to hold off and see what happens. I think next month I am going to grab a new 3G iPhone, but I really want to hold out to see if they release one with a slide keyboard. I guess that’s a big for a different post. Bottom line, if you can’t live without new tech, grab this phone. It is better than your Sidekick and about as cool as your iPhone. Emailing from Gmail is flawless, and for some people… that’s all that matters.
The phone gets a 8 out of a possible 10.
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